ALLA (WA) News Blog

When: Tuesday 27 March , 7:30 am. Where: Miss Maud Restaurant, 97 Murray Street, Perth Cost: $27.00 per person, please bring cash as no split billing. RSVP: Judith Allan  by Friday 23 March

ALLA(WA) invites Western Australian Law Library professionals to participate in our Employment and Salary Survey for 2018.  The survey will be open from Thursday 22 February and closes Friday 16th March and takes no more than 5 minutes to complete.  In the past, the survey has proven useful to law library professionals in their annual salary negotiations. Please respond to the survey only once unless you work in multiple organizations. Please click the following link to access the survey:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RMLGWPR Please contact  Stephen Griffiths  with any questions.

When:   5.00pm (for a 5.15pm start), Tuesday 13 March 2018 Where:  LexisNexis, BGC Conference Centre               Ground Floor, BGC Centre   28 The Esplanade, Perth RSVP:   By COB 9 March 2018 to  Judy Allan Following advocacy from ALLA (WA), this session is an opportunity for ALLA (WA) Members (excluding publishers) to have their concerns and experiences with Lexis Advance heard. Presenters from LexisNexis will include, Simon Wilkins (General Manager, Australia), Jo Wade (Head of Project Development, APAC) and Cormac Maguire (Customer Experience Manager, Australia). LexisNexis will be hosting a catered 90 minute session that will take the following format:  A snapshot based on the most common questions LexisNexis receives; o    Authentication o    Content o    Upgrade Timeline o    Review of the platform enhancements since launch ...

May is fast approaching... Have you got your ticket for the 2018 ALLA conference yet? Discounted Early bird registration rates are available till 2 March with a range of full registration and day registration options available.  In addition two days of fantastic speakers, you can also register for pre-conference workshops and tours.  The registration portal is available at  http://allaconference.com.au/2018/index.php/register/   We can't wait to #seeyouinDarwin  Have you seen the line up? In addition to an exciting program, the Conference Committee is delighted to bring to ALLA 2018 three keynote speakers who represent the conference theme of Local Footprint, Global Impact: ·         Ruth Bird, EIFL ‘elibrary Myanmar Project Capacity Building Manager’ and former Bodleian Law Librarian ·         Danial Kelly, Senior Lecturer in the Charles Darwin Univerisity (CDU...

The Parliamentary Library hosted a fantastic demonstration and tour for ALLA (WA) and Curtis students on February 7 2018. We heard from Niamh Corbett and other members of the of the library team who do reference, including late nights when parliament in sitting, maintain a fantastic media database for the members, keep biographies of members current and do collection development in an environment where the requirements of the parliamentarians can vary according to the latest policy directions. The service this team provides was mind blowing! The team shared a delicious and generous morning tea with us Afterwards most of use went on a tour of the parliamentary chambers, and learnt some tidbits that can be new even to experienced law librarians, such as a detailed information on notable women in parliament. We are most grateful to Niamh, for Judy Ballantyne for setting it up, to the team for spending their time sharing what they do, and to Sarah, our guide for the tour....

In a Legal Insight post from 2014, ‘The Future of Law: Disappearing Legal Library and Virtual Firms’ an infographic showed that by 2044 45% of respondents surveyed believed that their legal library would virtually disappear. Ignoring the opportunities to analyse the phrase “ virtually disappear”, I’m choosing to assume that this is in reference to physical floor space. Sure, there’s our physical collections will continue to shrink – but even by 2044, I doubt that everything we hold in print will be available electronically. Or at least in a functional way. A more recent Thomson Reuters Whitepaper, Law Libraries’ Digital Revolution , discusses the benefits of moving to eBook collections.  Now, I’m pro eBook in theory. If only they worked the same as a hardcopy.  Consider: Mental topography, or, when we read on dead trees, do we retain more? (See: The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens ). eBooks don’t necessa...

The latest issue of AALL Spectrum has a great article about how law librarians can use coding to create customisations within their work flows. The article doesn’t focus on any advanced coding languages (think Python or Ruby) but instead focuses on the codes that form the building blocks of the web and how these can offer real-world applications for libraries. In ‘Coding with the building blocks of the web’ the author, Nick Szydlowski, offers advice on how to use, learn and maintain coding all while leveraging existing skills. Szydlowski suggests that “law libraries may benefit from embracing a culture in which staff are encouraged to invest in foundational  technological skills. … there can sometimes be more emphasis on learning consumer-level tools, in the form of new vendor products and features, and not enough emphasis on the type and fundamental skills that can be re-used project after project.” The article presents a great think piece for those considering branching...

APS6 Legal Library Officer (Canberra, ACT) - 12/m Librarian role at $75-85k p.a. + 15.4% Super   Ashurst Research Librarian (Perth, WA) - 12 month Maternity Leave cover Librarian Role